The sadness you feel is not your own. It's his sadness you feel in your heart, Amy, for missing you.

My rule has always been, write the next part of the book that you seem to know well. So I won't necessarily write chapter two after chapter one.

Don't we all deserve forgiveness? I hope we do; I believe we do. Forgiveness says as much about the character of the person bestowing it as the person receiving it. Learning to forgive may be the most difficult of human acts,and the closest thing to divinity, whatever you decide that is.

Kittredge had obviously misjudged her, but he had learned that was the way with most people. The story was never the story, and it surprised you, how much another person could carry.

And I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction, especially apocalyptic and postapocalyptic fiction.

One of the great themes in American literature is the individual's confrontation with the vast open spaces of the continent.

Behind every writer stands a very large bookshelf.